Category Archives: Upper Deck

A Different Kind Of Matt Ryan Logo is Up On Ebay

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For you fans of Ultimate Collection football, there is card up on eBay right now that I believe you will like. This Matt Ryan 1/1 “logo” patch is not quite what people are used to when it comes to the typical NFL 1/1’s, but I love the idea none-the-less.

Each year, Ultimate Collection is one of the top valued RC cards because of the cost of its wax. It was the first super high end product, and the ideas of what the product holds have pretty much held the same through the years. In 2007, Ultimate Collection was far and away the worst product of the year. The designers of the product used stickers and photoshop to basically make each card look the same, in order to fill out the new format of one auto per pack. That meant that if you pulled a Sunday Stars auto, it looked exactly like Ultimate Ink, but with a different title on the card.
Ultimate also had a bunch of logo cards over the years, with many of them just being the normal NFL shield in a diecut window. The “logo” cards from 2008 were different, using a special tag from specially designed NFL throwbacks, and I think they look awesome. Its always good to think outside the box, as long as the result isnt too nuts. This Matt Ryan fits that mold, in my opinion.

2005 Artifacts May Be My Favorite Baseball Set Of All Time

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Dont get me started on the value of busting this product, but I love so many of the cards from this set that I wish more of it were surfacing lately. See, the issue with this set is that boxes of 2005 Artifacts could be some of the worst box breaks known to man. However, if you hit a biggie like the Mauer I just bought, you may have one of the sexiest cards produced in the modern era.

The problem with 2005 Artifacts was that it was as much of a checklist poop as it was an on-card auto mecca. Some of the autographs from this set were so bad that they bordered on insanity. A while ago I covered some of the cards, including a relief pitcher that only made like 8 big league appearances before cashing in the chips. Cards like that are the reason that no one would pay the price tag of 100 bucks a box. Also, because the good ones were so rare, its like UD knew what was going to happen and designed them as gods among men. Trust me, do some searching, you will see what I mean.

Despite the lack of a good checklist for half the set, people like my man Billy Packer saw the diamond in the rough. In fact, for that favorite Mauer patch set of mine, he has collected over 80% of the whole thing, including hard to get ones like Jeter and Griffey. As with most tough tasks in the hobby, he has hit a roadblock on the remaining cards he doesnt have yet. That means that if you are at the national, send him a PM at FCB if you see one he doesnt have. I know he would greatly appreciate it.
Of course, that patch set isnt the only amazing part of the product, either. It is filled to the brim with jersey button/laundry tag/on card autos, as well a many other dreams for player collectors and team collectors alike.
Listen, I know the product in general has a ton of down points, but the highlights are too beautiful to ignore.

Uncovering Bias – My “Undying Love” For Upper Deck?

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Ive noticed that my “bias” for UD seems to be the focus of every criticism of this blog, so Im happy to address it while its an issue for people.

First off, before I start the discussion, I want to say that there will always be bias on this blog. Always. The reason for this is because everything I write is opinion, nothing more. It just so happens that those opinions seem to have many hobby-wide ripples among people who frequent the blog, but they remain my feelings and my feelings only. This blog never has and never will be objective. You should all know that by now.
Now, people seem to be a little disturbed by the fact that most of the negative remarks here on the blog are in reference to Topps and Donini rather than Upper Deck. My detractors seem to think this is because im in bed with UD or because they are more responsive than other companies. They are partially correct, UD is very much more communicative, yet my gain is nothing from the stuff I say. I get nothing for SCU from any company, despite the number of offers.
In regards to the responsiveness that UD has to many collectors, including myself, I dont see why I shouldnt let that change the field a little. How is transparency a bad thing? I mean, if I have a problem, I have the ability to talk to someone who makes the decisions! That is great no matter how you slice it. How much would you love to talk to Apple about their decision to re-release the iPhone 3G less than a year after you paid 300 for the original? What if you could talk to Microsoft directly about the XBOX’s red ring of death? Wouldnt that make it easier to form an opinion about things? Ill tell you, it makes forming opinions a lot easier when you know someone cares and is listening. That will never be a negative.
Its not that I havent given Topps and Donini the chance, either. When I first started SCU, Scott Prusha of Donini was the first of the manufacturers to contact me about something I said. I was excited for the prospects of speaking with the man, but I was quickly disappointed. During my interview, instead of answering the tough questions, he pushed me away with “no comments” and the like. In fact, Topps didnt even respond to my initial interview request!
On the other side of things, UD came at me with a completely different approach. Gregg proceeded to answer every single question I had with reckless abandon, no matter how poorly his answers reflected on the company. He wanted me to be content with the info I wanted, and has never had a problem giving insight into the business. What about Topps and Donini? I havent heard boo from them since.
Does this mean that I wont bash UD for their stupidity? Never. I will not ever be shy to tell you guys what I actually think. The problem is, UD doesnt make a fourth of the mistakes that the other companies do. This may equivocate a bias in many people’s mind, but Im okay with that. Those sentiments come with the territory.
Despite what people actually think, the idea of the blog continues to stand true. Basically, if you fuck up, im going to be there to call you on it. Unfortunately for everyone, Donini and Topps happen to fuck up a lot, that means a lot of negative opinions here on SCU. It has nothing to do with anything else other than my feelings on certain goings on.
People also fail to realize that baseball and football are vastly different industries. The idea that Topps may not be the top company in a sport is very foreign to people who dont venture outside of baseball that often. Expectations which hold true in baseball do not necessarily hold true in football and vice versa. Therefore, when a detractor considers that notion, they may be able to see where the UD bias stems from: UD JUST MAKES BETTER FOOTBALL STUFF. Bottom line.
When you look a little deeper into the slinging that goes down, most people just need something sticky to throw at me. Why they chose the “bias,” im not sure, because its an inevitable part of a non-objective site. I guess they got bored with the fat jokes.

Product Review: 2009 Upper Deck Icons Football

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UD’s first post premiere product is live today, and you can expect that there are very high expectations for one of the most popular products of last year in terms of sales. Ill tell you the truth, I hated this product last year, and I still don’t know if that hatred has left my system. Having the manu-letters in this set without signatures, as well has having some non-sports parts to this set makes me weary, but other parts of it are very exciting to me.

Design/Creativity

Although this set was ugly last year, the design has MUCH improved. Working with curved lines instead of the stone cutouts has done wonders, and actually shows a lot of good design work. I may go after a few of the autoed base parallels, as UD has done a really good job not making the stickers look out of place.

Even though the idea of the unsigned manu-letters is ridiculous, the design of the cards is really awesome. Considering that most of the letters have signed parallels, I may actually want a few of them. They actually pulled off the letters in this set really nicely. The problem is that some of the letters get cut off by the tapered window, but I am okay with that based on the overall presenation. In fact, I think the quality of the manu-letter material seems to have gone up from the few boxes I saw broken, so that is a great upgrade.

The idea of still having the rookies in their college unis really bugs me, especially with the time to get the correct pics in there, and the lack of on card autos in this set. We are far enough past the premiere to have NFL cards, so that is a MAJOR let down. Despite the lack of updated unis, the cards of the rookies look really cool, putting elite to shame for sure. Most of the pics I have seen of the players on the cards look great, I think the pic choosers have really done some great work this year for all UD products.

As for the returning die-cut cards, I really dislike that inclusion in this set. Although it gives buyers another aspect to collect from this product, I am over diecut cards, and have been since the 1990s. There are better options for paralleling stuff, and diecutting should be axed from the playbook in my opinion. I will say, the diecuts do fit the design of the cards, but I could never see myself going after those.

Lastly, UD has seemingly made their own rules for this set and printed a lot of it on foilboard, or some weird variation of it. Its not mirrored and its not too rainbow, so its not as bad as the Donini eyesores, but its still looks awful on a lot of the cards. That was not fun to see. It also looked like they copied a page out of Prestige Chrome and had some insert parallels done the way Donini usually does them. That made me scared for the future, especially if UD is going to adopt more of what Donini does.

Rating =

Autograph Cards

The autos in this set are stickers, except for the letters, which is kind of a let down, but they have done a pretty good job in making the stickers fit. When I first saw the autos that my friend got, I thought they actually were on card, so a win there.

The autographed letters look great, and should be a chase for the collectors of those players. The design pops in front of your face, and they fit in really nicely with the design themes of the set.

I have said before that I am a big fan of base auto parallels because the base cards always look better with a signature. This set plays that out to my advantage, and I am very excited for some of the ones I may get to go after.

Lastly, this is the set that has utilized the now defunct sweet spot helmets for the celebrity auto set they are doing for the product. Im not going to support the assignment of celebrities to a certain related team, though the cards look like they are pretty cool from the previews we got. We know that the Kardashian spectrum auto from baseball was a huge hit, these will probably be similar. However, I think it will be hillarious if she breaks up with Bush before the autos are fufilled.

NOTE: I also wanted to congratulate the guy who thought to put Jared Allen into this set, as I have already set an eBay reminder for the one that is ending soon. He has had zero parts to any set in terms of autos since the year after his rookie year, and I am PSYCHED to have an auto or two to chase.

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Relic Cards

Man, I am very sorry to report that we have the first floating swatch cards of 2009 from Upper Deck in this product. On a few of the jersey subsets, the swatches are horribly placed, even covering up player pics on some of them. That should never be allowed for a card, and I am really fucking pissed that it is becoming a trend.

Also, it seems like with all the windows for this set, they are surrounded by a faded border that looks weird. Its like the jersey isnt fitting into the stock and they have to bend the card a little to help it. THAT NEEDS TO STOP.

Honestly, Im getting fucking bored with non-autoed swatch cards, and Icons has its fair share. Ill pass on all these.

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Value To The Collector

I think that this set should hold value, especially in the signed letters and the sweet spot celebrities. The checklist for both is pretty good, and the bust for this product is more worth it because of stuff like that. For the price, this stuff is a pretty good bust, especially now that the cards look ten times better than last year.

The problem with Icons is that the rookie part of the set will surely be eclipsed a million times over when UD releases stuff that is not college uni. I would wait before purchasing any of those autos, hold off for calmer waters on price too.

Although this set has some problems, it may be worth your time to buy a box or two just to pass the time. There are enough HOFers, stars and celebs in the set to balance out the scrubs, and you could get very lucky.

Rating =

Overall Impression

For what this product was supposed to be, its kind of a bummer to me. I wish that we could have had some awesome rookie parts to this set, and I really dislike the constant celebrity invasion to every set that comes out.

Hopefully, as the year moves forward, there are a lot more products that exceed the hype than those that fall short. I know that Donini may start to figure things out, and Topps is gearing up for the base set and chrome, meaning that UD needs to stay on the ball. This set didn’t show a lot of that to me.

Average Rating =

2009 Product Leaderboard (SO FAR)

1(t). UD Icons Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Heroes Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Draft Edition (3/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Donruss Classics (2/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Donruss Elite (2/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Playoff Prestige (2/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Bowman Draft Picks (2/5 GELLMANS)

Upper Deck Renews Baseball License With MLBPA

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http://www.upperdeck.com/marketing/news_article.aspx?aid=6223

Per the UD website, they have reached an agreement with the MLBPA to continue producing baseball cards. You can imagine this is huge for UD, as there were rumblings that a Topps or Donini exclusive license was in the works.

This is not saying that Topps and Donini wont get the license in the end, but at least one of the companies in the mix will be Upper Deck.

Ill have more on this as it develops.